Canada Pension Plan Investment Board posted a 4.6 percent gross return in the fiscal third quarter as the value of its foreign holdings were bolstered by a declining currency. Assets under management at the country’s largest pension fund grew 18 percent to C$282.6 billion ($203.5 billion) during the quarter ended Dec. 31, up from about C$239 billion a year earlier, according to results released Wednesday. The fund returned 6.3 percent for the first nine months of the year. "The returns you are seeing in terms of foreign equities in large measure is due to the weakness in the Canadian dollar," Mark Wiseman, Canada Pension chief executive officer, said in an interview. As a result, the value of the fund’s total private and public equity portfolios grew more than 15 percent year over year during the quarter, boosted by those in emerging markets that were up 34 percent year over year, according to the fund’s quarterly results.